Archbishopric of Bremen - History - The Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen After 1180 As A Territory of Imperial Immediacy - The Era of The Lutheran Administrators of The Prince-Archbishopric

The Era of The Lutheran Administrators of The Prince-Archbishopric

The constitution of the Holy Roman Empire provided, that the Emperor may only enfeoff a prince-bishop elect with the regalia, if the Pope would have confirmed his election to the respective See. In default thereof the Emperor could grant a liege indult (German: Lehnsindult), often restricted to some years only, and then notwithstanding enfeoff the prince-bishop elect with the regalia of restricted legitimacy to the effect that the elect could rule with princely power within the prince-bishopric, bearing only title of Administrator, but would be banned from participating in the Diets. Lacking papal confirmation and imperial liege indult could bring a prince-bishop elect into the precarious situation to be dismissed by the Emperor or by any of his vassals powerful enough and keen to do so.

Once the inhabitants of the Prince-Archbishopric had adopted Lutheranism and partially Calvinism, as did the city of Bremen and the territories under its influence downstream the Weser and in the district of Bederkesa, also most capitulars, recruited from burghers of the city of Bremen and rural noble families, turned out to be Calvinists and Lutherans. Thus the capitulars preferred to elect Protestant candidates. The Bremian prince-archbishop elects could only occasionally gain the imperial liege indult.

Many princely houses, such as the House of Guelf (Brunswick and Lunenburg-Wolfenbüttel), the House of Nikloting (Mecklenburg-Schwerin), the House of Wettin (Electorate of Saxony), and the House of Ascania (Saxe-Lauenburg) applied for the See. Before electing a new prince-archbishop the Chapter took its time, ruling the Prince-Archbishopric in accordance with the Estates (1566–1568), and considered the opportunities.

In 1524 the Prince-Archbishopric had subjected the autonomous farmers' republic of the Land of Wursten, but the Wursteners still hoped for a liberation and support from the neighbouring Saxe-Lauenburgian exclave of the Land of Hadeln. Thus on 17 February 1567 the Chapter elected Henry III, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg (*1550-1585*, ruled from 1568 on) prince-archbishop. In return his father Francis I waived any Saxe-Lauenburgian claim to the Land of Wursten as well as to the district of Bederkesa and abandoned the lawsuit, which he had brought to the Imperial Chamber Court to this end.

In his election capitulations Henry III covenanted to accept the privileges of the Estates and the existing laws. Due to his minority he agreed, that Chapter and Estates would rule the Prince-Archbishopric. In this time he should work towards a papal confirmation. De facto he ascended the See in 1568, gained an imperial liege indult in 1570, while de jure still represented by the Chapter until 1580, in order not to complicate a papal confirmation, which never materialised.

While Maximilian II regarded Henry III a true Catholic, Pope Sixtus V remained skeptic. Henry III was raised Lutheran, but educated Catholic and served before his election as Catholic canon of the cathedral in Cologne. The schism wasn't so definite, as it looks in the retrospect. The Holy See still hoped the Reformation would be a merely temporary phenomenon, while its protagonists still expected all the Roman church to reform, so that there would be no schism.

So Sixtus V tested Henry III once in a while, demanding the succession of Catholic candidates for vacancies in the Bremian Chapter - which it sometimes accepted, sometimes denied -, while Henry succeeded to be also elected by the Chapters of the prince-bishoprics of Osnabrück (1574–1585) and Paderborn (1577–1585), without ever gaining papal confirmation. In 1575 Henry III and Anna von Broich (Borch) married in Hagen im Bremischen.

As to the interior Henry III still had to repay debts from his pre-predecessor Christopher the Spendthrift. In 1580 Henry introduced a Lutheran church constitution for the Prince-Archbishopric. Thus Henry III would not exercise the pastoral functions of a Roman Catholic bishop any more. In 1584 the Holy See founded the Roman Catholic Nordic Missions, an endeavour for pastoral care and mission in the area of the de facto ceased archdioceses of Bremen and of Lund. In 1622 the Nordic Missions were subordinated to the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide in Rome. The Holy See conveyed to the Nuncio to Cologne, Pietro Francesco Montoro, the task to look after the Nordic Missions in - among others - the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen and the Prince-Bishopric of Verden. In 1667 the Holy See further institutionalised the Nordic Missions by establishing the Vicariate Apostolic of the Nordic Missions.

On 22 April 1585 Henry III died in his residence in Beverstedtermühlen after a riding accident. After Henry's early death Adolf, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp wielded influence at the Bremian Chapter to elect his son John Adolf, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (*1575-1616*) to the See. To this end, Adolf paid 20,000 rixdollars and promised to work towards the restitution of Ditmarsh to the Prince-Archbishopric.

In 1585 John Adolf covenanted at his election in the obligatory election capitulations, that he would accept the privileges of the Chapter as well as the existing laws and that he would work - at his own expense - towards gaining either papal confirmation or - in default thereof - an imperial liege indult. From 1585 to 1589 Chapter and Estates ruled the Prince-Archbishopsric in custodianship for the minor John Adolf.